Give where it's most useful

Good-hearted people everywhere should stop and think before sending a well-meaning but misguided donation.

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poconorecord.com

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Posted Jan. 13, 2013 at 12:01 AM

Posted Jan. 13, 2013 at 12:01 AM

» Social News

Good-hearted people everywhere should stop and think before sending a well-meaning but misguided donation.

Take the thousands of donors who have sent teddy bears and other stuffed animals to Newtown, Conn. in the wake of the December massacre of 20 students and six school officials at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Town authorities have begged people not to send the items, but delivery vans and trucks continue arriving filled with toys, school supplies and other gifts. Some of them are addressed to specific individuals or families. Others are just community "gifts." Newtown is having trouble finding enough volunteers to just sort them out. Now they're sitting in boxes and piles in a warehouse or other storage facility. Letters of sympathy are sorted elsewhere.

While well intended, these gifts are not helping anyone except, maybe, the donors, who probably feel as if any effort is better than none at all. It ain't necessarily so, though, when gifts actually create problems for the recipients. The folks in Sandy Hook appreciate the outpouring of sympathy, but they struggle to cope with so much of it.

The sensible course after such disturbing disasters is to channel caring impulses to entities already organized and concrete. Donating to the Red Cross makes sense. Its domestic and international rescue efforts are well recognized. So does sending food or cash to an established local food bank or the Salvation Army. In the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings, would-be donors could also consider getting involved with anti-violence groups, or support efforts to identify and treat the mentally ill. After all, Sandy Hook is but one, albeit horrific, disaster site. Other awful things will occur, from house fires to floods, right in our own communities. Well-funded, well-equipped agencies will be better prepared to address them.

Any or all of these actions would direct help to where it's nearly always needed, and where it would be welcome assistance indeed. With no offense intended to cuddly Mr. Teddy Bear.